Shawntan Howell empowers girls

Shawntan Howell strives to empower young girls through teaching them that they are unique, and that makes them powerful.

"In order to be powerful you have to know that you are different from other people and once you believe that and understand that being different is good, you become powerful," said Howell.

Howell is the founder of Girls are Powerful, an organization dedicated to empowering, uplifting and encouraging young girls through self-awareness and reflection. The message is presented by a product line of motivating slogans and statements that the young girls can take with them to be inspired at any time.

"Girls Are Powerful is a movement designed to create change in the way girls and young women view and feel about themselves by changing the way they think and act one step at a time," said Howell. "Girls Are Powerful goal is to celebrate girls' naturally unique qualities, but also encourage girls to embrace their qualities unconditionally – qualities such as being determined, confident, smart and beautiful."

The idea for her organization began last summer while collecting t-shirts that had inspirational sayings on them. While looking for more inspirational t-shirts online, the entrepreneur explored programs that would support the message she wanted her daughter to believe in. When she was not able to find anything that relayed the exact message she wanted to convey she decided to design her own motivational shirts and other supporting products. She began to collaborate with her daughter.

Howell and her daughter experimented with positive words to describe her daughter. The encouraging mother said to her daughter, "If there is one thing that I want you to know about yourself, it is that you are powerful."

Howell created taglines that coincided with the power words. One example is "Believing in myself and showing the world". The t-shirt line is called Inspire Me Tees. Each tee has the confirmation "That's Me."

"I added the tagline because I want the girls to embrace it," said Howell.

All of the messages on her t-shirts are messages that support empowering the young girls, and according to Howell are attributes that, once understood and defined, can bring out the most infectious and delightful personality traits in any person.

"The young girls need to know that no matter what others may say, think or feel about you the power to shape your mind, feelings or even your day begins with you owning who you are and believing in yourself," said Howell.

The next step for the company is to develop empowerment workshops.

"Currently, we are developing an empowerment program for girls to help develop and improve their self-esteem and body image," said Howell. "The program is relayed through positive dialogue centered around power principles such as smart, beautiful, determined and powerful."

Howell's organization has six power principles and the logo is the pinwheel. Each pin on the pinwheel represents a power word.

"I chose the pinwheel because while watching one spin, I thought that is how life can be for young girls – always spinning. I began to research the symbolism behind a pinwheel. In some cultures it is believed that whenever a pinwheel spins, change is occurring in your life," said Howell.

While Howell strives to reach and empower young girls through many mediums, she always brings it back to why she started the movement. "Everything that I am doing is confirming and supporting the positive message that is on my t-shirts, and showing and inspiring my daughter and others to embrace her uniqueness. The ultimate message I want to convey is that everyone is unique, and once we own our unique attributes we become more powerful and can positively affect the world around us," said Howell.

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